Reading /usr/src/contrib/sendmail (several READMEs...)
and /usr/share/doc/.../books/handbook/sendmail.html
and searching the forums did not definitively answer...

I seem to recall some early FreeBSD books gave precise instructions on
revising the /etc/mail file(s) to include a SMART_HOST... then one
could use /usr/ports/net/sendemail (etc) to send from ones computer
to elsewhere.

[ the SMART_HOST I initially configured switched URLs I think which made it obsolete...]
[ spent a long while reading linux posts/threads about the issue without freebsd-specific information...]

It seems with the advent of webmail, it would be advantageous to have documentation something along the line of...
an /etc/mail/UPDATING
that included, say, the precise method of the various .cf .mc ...
hostname in rc.conf... instructions for a newbie to set a smart host and
the subsequent commands and some possible testing of sending mail
out to the web from the command line, given the preponderance of email
hosts VS earlier times...

Not that I've any need of it soon, but seems to be a missing part of an ideal
initial configuration of FreeBSD that may optimally include more steps than
the past (v4 v5) default ones...

Beyond my expertise at the moment. Just wondering if anyone else is
expert enough at sendmail to write something up.
Hesitant also to switch to postfix, because while its SMART_HOST may be
easier, I've always had sendmail locally to send cron messages, mail RE
periodic runs, etc UNLESS something other than sendmail actually does that
mail.

Hardly pay attention to system email... indeed just learned this year that
mail/alpine and mail/exmh2 can read root's mail (mbox)... despite having had
them installed for years...

When I used sendmail, years ago, the smart host was defined in my local .mc file, which I edited from a prototype collection in the cf directory. Looking back at old prototypes for you now, I see the provision instruction looks like this:

Code:

dnl define(`SMART_HOST', `mail.myisp.net')dnl

The .mc file needs to be "compiled" into your final local .cf file with an applicable make command, or with the m4 processor directly. On OpenBSD, I vaguely recall using the m4 command directly, having switched first to the m4 directory. My memory may be faulty, because in order to find the provisioning data I grabbed the sendmail package for OpenBSD, and there are header files but no tools in the m4 directory there now. There's a Makefile in the .cf directory.

I hated sendmail. It worked, once provisioned, but provisioning was always a nightmare for me. Once OpenSMTPd became available, I left sendmail and never looked back.

Hmmm.
Some progress for the original post... besides the mc > cf that I just saved this thread for...
A google search ' insite:bsdnexus.com sendmail' or something, ( besides a courier-sourceforge long list of maildrop q/a... ) ... is the
__________________________________________________ ______________www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/Sendmail.html ...
__________________________________________________ ______________
^^^^ that page... ... ...
1... with the addition of a SMART_HOST howto, curiously absent from that page...

1a... could be a linux > (open,net,Free) BSD Sendmail howto page. Appears almost complete
from here...

1b... as an aside, it has a roster of sendmail books (sendmail, sendmail cookbook...) at the
bottom (5 sendmail, 2 spam prevention IIRC)... one or two of which I have stored away
somewhere...

So if nothing much more comes of this thread, that page may be of use to FreeBSD etc
mail administrators, some of which may opt to update its information into the handbook
if it is not already there...